Man Last Set Foot on the Moon 40 Years Ago Today

Our greatest achievements in space date to four decades ago

Astronaut Eugene Cernan one day before leaving the satellite for good

43 years ago, mankind was marveling at the technological advances that pushed us to leave our relatively safe planet and go land on the closest rock big enough to hold us, the moon. 40 years ago today, the last man to ever set foot on the moon left our natural satellite.

No one has returned since and humans have confined themselves to circling a few hundreds of kilometers above our planet.

40 years ago, the fastest processor was Intel's 8008, running at a whopping 200 KHz clock, slower than the chip on your wrist watch these days, the first 8-bit processor. Also that year, Atari ships Pong, the first commercial video game.

Humankind's exploration of outer space objects ended after just six moon landings. That last one, the Apollo 17 mission, brought back some 111 kg or 244 pounds of moon rock. Ironically perhaps, scientists are still making discoveries by analyzing samples brought back in those missions.